Using other liquid than water when making stock

Any recipe where the water is part of a sauce or is expected to be absorbed (including rice, couscous, and yes, pasta too), you can use stock instead to increase the deliciousness. If you have an opportunity to add flavour, why waste it?

Of course, there are some caveats to consider when making the substitution:

• Stock is going to contain a certain amount of gelatin (how much depends on how the stock is made). This is often a good thing, leading to a richer mouth-feel, but if the thickening effect would be detrimental to your recipe, then don't use stock.

• Stock can clash with other flavours, although less often than you'd expect, since it's effectively a mega-dose of umami. In particular I'd probably avoid using it in recipes that are either very sour (sour meat is the taste of rancidity and highly displeasing) or very sweet (since the sugar will overwhelm the flavour of the stock). So don't use it in your candies or in your pickling solutions, but any dish based primarily on meats, vegetables, and grains, is definitely fair game.

• Because it's a meat product, it has a limited life span. I wouldn't recommend substituting it for water in anything that's going to sit in the fridge for several days and/or be re-frozen, due to food safety concerns.

• Oh, and I probably wouldn't use it in baking. The effects of using homemade stock when the primarily role of the liquid is to develop gluten would be unpredictable, to say the least. And somehow the thought of turkey-flavoured cake just doesn't sound very appealing to me.

As for the right ratio - that depends entirely on what went into the stock, how long it was simmered for and whether or not the stock itself was reduced prior to storing/freezing. You're definitely going to want the same total amount of liquid, but if the stock is highly gelatinous then you might want to dilute it, and conversely, if the stock is very weak then you might want to reduce it. There really is no golden ratio, but I'd probably stick with 1:1 for a "typical" stock.

Both methods are acceptable.

A stock made with roasted bones is called a brown stock. A stock made from raw bones is a white stock (or sometimes just stock).

Practically, it's very difficult to get a true "white" stock with beef, as opposed to chicken, since all of the impurities will darken or cloud the colour - but that is semantics.

Brown stocks have a richer flavour, but that does not automatically make them better - it depends on what you'll be using it for. For soups, where the stock will give most of the flavour, brown is generally preferred; however, as a "flavourful liquid" to use in sauces, risottos, etc., a white stock may be more useful because you don't want it to overwhelm the other flavours.

One cautionary note: Beef bones tend to give off a lot of what looks like blood (actually myoglobin) when boiled. If you're trying to achieve a perfect clear stock (white or brown), then you may want to blanch them first; dump them in the pot, bring the water just to a boil, then dump out everything and start over. You really won't lose much; most of the proteins are deeper within the bones and requires several hours of simmering to extract and denature.

If making a brown stock (from roasted bones), do this after roasting, not before. It will also help you to get rid of any excess oil so you won't need to skim as much.